In the words of Homer Simpson "DOH!". Thinking about it more using new hops would keep that part simple but i was hoping to use this style in helping me a bit in saving some $. I'm always looking at driving down the costs of brewing. I'll try it anyway, sounds like a fun process to experiment with.

Ok I read the resource and doing some planning, an excellent article on planing out gravity. One thing i'm missing is the re-use of Hops. My plan was to make a big IPA or Barley wine then a small with a similar hop profile. How can i calculate my IBUs with my left over hops?

I'm looking to try partigyle style brewing. What i was thinking about was making a 5 gallon barley wine and then a 10 gallon session beer or ale. I wanted to know how i should calculate efficiencies and OG of both brews before hand so i know how much grain to buy. Anyone have a good book i should purchase or online resource i should know about that would help?

If money is a concern I'd go with another immersion chiller inline with your current one and plunk it in a bucket of ice water, I call it my pre-chiller. What i do is the night before a brew day i take an old retired fermenting bucket and fill it with water and put it in the fridge. When my wort gets down to about 100-120 i get the bucket of now ~40F water out of the fridge and put the pre-chiller immersion chiller in the cold bath of water. I find it helps on the really hot brew days and was cost effective for me.

I'm looking to put together my own table and add a electric motor to help make things easier. Does anyone have any pictures of their motorized setup? The cost of the bare bone JSP MaltMill is very enticing, taking a few extra steps to make my own hopper seems like a fun project.

I saw this challenge last week and decided to give it a try. I have a Ordinary Bitters recipe that i developed to give this a go. It was perfect timing because this weekend we are having a family get together and I'll debut it there along with the red ale I made weeks before.

FindingsThe fermentation took off and because of that and the unusually warm weather this time of year this beer fermented on the higher end of its accepted range and a bit over. I normally try to keep the beer on the colder end of it's excepted temperature range, but with trying to knock a beer out quick, fermenting on the higher end of its excepted temperature range might be required to keep the yeasts at fully active. Keeping a close eye on temperatures is what i would do next time. The beer does taste a bit young, it may not win any competitions but if I needed beer in a pinch this would work nicely.

There was not a lot of time to take gravity readings so when I hit my Target Gravity i just said it was done and began chilling it. Normally i let a beer sit for another few days to confirm fermentation was complete. Considering I'm a few days under the limit I would add that into my schedule next time.

ConclusionThis was the first time I've ever brewed a beer below 1.050, I normally stick with Denny's mantra of "Life starts at 60... 1.060 that is" it was a nice experiment for me and will give me something nice and light to drink on those hot summer days.

I hope this gives everyone a decent view into my brewing week if you have any question I'll try and answer them the best i can.

I'm going to submit my first beer in a local home brewing competition and i was hoping you guys would have some tips or things i should look out for that might help a first timers chances for being noticed. I'm submitting an IPA I created.

some questions I have are.

1. Should I naturally carbonate or force carbonate in a keg then transfer? I would think the spent yeast at the bottom of the bottle would not be good and cloud my beer so force carbonation and then transfer to bottles the day of the event.

2. Should I look into creating some labels for my bottles help them get noticed?

3. What is the best way to transport them? This is a local competition so i will be attending in person. I have a small cooler that hold a 6 pack perfectly, I was thinking about using that.